The Trails of Riverview Park
Editor's Note: As a youth growing up on the northside of Pittsburgh, Riverview Park was the outdoors. To walk into the park was to escape the sweltering city summer, with its competing discord of noises and baked asphalt, and enter a world of quiet, shaded peace. A half-mile trail near the Riverview Avenue entrance to the park offers an immediate
passageway
to the natural world as it loops the foothill of the Allegheny Observatory, ending very close to where it begins. Other trails meander through the park for miles, providing a full day of exploration.Today, the trails at Riverview Park are as quiet and beautiful as I remembered them, and still a relatively undiscovered natural treasure. Jack Rowley
Riverview Park was donated to the City of Allegheny by the Watson family in 1894 and encompasses 251 acres. The Park's name comes from a number of overlooks it once had to the Ohio River. Though now overgrown, these vistas were part of the original attributes of the Park.
Today, Riverview Park is noted for its superb unmanaged original growth woodlands. These areas are home to at least 39 species of animals and birds. The Riverview Park woodlands have more miles of hiking trails than the other three Pittsburgh regional parks. Its most well known trail, the Cross Country Trail, is used consistently by several of the city's high school track and cross country teams for practice. In addition, Riverview Park has the only bridle trails in the City of Pittsburgh.
The Allegheny Observatory is Riverview Park's most unique and well known feature. This working observatory is part of the University of Pittsburgh Department of Astronomy. Tours of the Observatory are held several times a week, April through October. Admission is free of charge, but tickets must be ordered in advance. Call
412-321-2400
for information and to make reservations.
View a Map. Reference: City of Pittsburgh Website.
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